Daughter of Hassan & Heart of the Desert(14)

She felt rather than saw the broad shoulders lift. ‘Why should I not be? The Sheikha requested me to escort you, and here I am.’

Despite the perfectly logical explanation Danielle felt curiously uneasy. Jourdan had not struck her as a man to tamely accept the orders of another, especially a woman, even though that woman was the wife of the ruler of Qu‘Har.

‘Perhaps you would have preferred me to be Saud?’ the smooth voice mocked unkindly. ‘It seems you have quite a disastrous effect on impressionable young men, daughter of Hassan.’

‘All we were doing was talking,’ Danielle protested angrily. ‘It was completely innocent.’

‘There is no such thing as innocence between a man and a woman,’ Danielle was told arrogantly, ‘and to imply that there can be shows how little you know of the world, mignonne, or how competent you are at deceiving yourself.’

Rather than listen to his taunts any longer, Danielle stared deliberately through the window. She could just see the sweeping blue-green shimmer of the gulf beyond gardens sheltered with clusters of palms, but as she watched the coastline seemed to recede rather than draw nearer, and she frowned as she looked ahead and saw that the dual carriageway they were travelling was taking them away from the coast rather than closer to it.

They came to an intersection and she waited for them to turn towards the gulf, but instead the car moved swiftly in completely the opposite direction, through what were obviously the suburbs of the town, dotted with expensive villas, which grew sparser in inverse proportion to the empty acres of sand. Concerned, Danielle glanced over her shoulder. They had come several miles out of the town. Where were they going?

She voiced the question sharply, and for her pains received only a taunting command to, ‘wait and see.’

Anxiety changed to fear. Danielle turned sharply in her seat, staring at the retreating city. Where was she being taken? She looked wildly towards the driver, intending to demand that he stopped the car instantly, then she remembered that Zanaide was seated in front with him and her fear dissolved a little. Jourdan was playing with her. He had deliberately fostered her alarm. She wished she hadn’t let him see how well he had succeeded.

She sat in silence as they travelled further and further into the desert. It was a battle of wills, Danielle told herself grimly, and one she had no intention of losing. They had been travelling for nearly an hour and the signs of human habitation they had passed had been a cluster of tents round a small oasis. They were probably travelling in a huge circle, Danielle reassured herself, trying not to feel overwhelmed by the vastness of the desert which now surrounded them. Sandhill succeeded sandhill; the sun was starting to dip down to the west, a crimson ball of fire, turning the sand the colour of blood. Danielle’s head ached despite the car’s luxurious uholstery and air-conditioning.

At last, when she could bear it no longer, she drew a painful breath and said shakily.

‘You have had your fun, Jourdan, and I’m properly impressed, but surely we must be nearing the palace now? The Sheikha will be expecting us?’

‘Right and wrong,’ Jourdan replied laconically, ‘We are nearing the palace, daughter of Hassan, but not that of my uncle the Sheikh.’

Even as he spoke a building appeared on the horizon, a wall, crenellated and set with huge wooden doors such as Danielle had. seen in films. As they approached these swung open, swallowing them like a giant maw, she thought apprehensively, wondering why Zanaide made no protest.

Beyond the outer wall was a courtyard, shady with palm trees and clumps of flowers, two lions couchant in pale marble guarding the steps to the main doorway to the palace. The car came to rest exactly between the lions and Danielle reached for the door.

‘You must wait until I precede you,’ Jourdan told her calmly, his fingers gripping hers hard, and warm. ‘Otherwise my people will think I do not have the respect of my wife…’

‘Your wife?’ Danielle gasped disbelievingly. A combination of heat and shock was making her feel dizzy, so dizzy that she could not protest as Zanaide helped her from the car out into the blood red rays of the dying sun, and from there to the cool shadows of a hallway tiled with mosaics and filled with the sound of the water which rose from a fountain and fell back into a bowl of rose quartz banded with gold.

‘But I’m not your wife, Jourdan,’ Danielle managed to stammer.

He stopped and turned, surveying her arrogantly from the advantage of his extra height, and Danielle shivered with a feeling which had nothing to do with the sudden change of temperature.

‘Not yet, daughter of Hassan,’ Jourdan agreed blandly. ‘But before dawn you will be.’





CHAPTER SIX


WHERE was she? Danielle wondered muzzily, lifting her head from a pillow whose scent reminded her poignantly of her childhood. It was several seconds before she identified the scent as lavender, and during that time she realised that she was not in her bedroom at the palace of Qu‘Har, but in a room which seemed to enbody all her imaginings of Eastern splendour.

Rich silks hung from the walls and curtained the windows; soft Persian rugs covered the cool marble floor, a bed which seemed to dwarf her tiny frame dominating the room, the draperies enclosing it all the myriad colours and shades of mother of pearl, and suspended from a gold circlet in the ceiling.

Even her clothes were different. Surely she had not come here wearing these flimsy silk under-things and nothing else? And then she remembered.

The door, which she now dimly remembered closing behind her with a decisive click, was locked. Her room—her prison, Danielle told herself bitterly—was round. Off it she discovered a luxurious bathroom, but nothing else.

She would not give way to tears, she told herself, biting her lip and curling her fingers into angry fists. Jourdan had no right to bring her here, no right to intimate that he meant to marry her. She would complain to the Sheikha and demand to be allowed to return home straight away. What would her stepfather think of his precious nephew when he learned of this outrage? Not much.

Danielle was so engrossed in her thoughts that she didn’t see the door open and wasn’t aware that she was no longer alone until she caught sight of Zanaide’s apologetic expression in the mirror.

‘Zanaide, what’s going on?’ she demanded, relieved to see at least one friendly face. ‘We must leave here and return to Qu‘Har!’

The little maid shook her head.

‘It is not possible. The Sheikh has commanded me to prepare the Sitt for her wedding. All is arranged, even the priest of your religion is here.’

‘Zanaide—you don’t understand. I don’t want to marry the Sheikh. He only wants to marry me for… for spite! Somehow you must find a way of telling the Sheikha what has happened, she will…’

Danielle broke off as Zaiade shook her head firmly.

‘No, Sitt. The Sheikha she tells me that you are to be married. I have your wedding gown here with me. It is fitting and right that you should be nervous,’ she added kindly. ‘Marriage is a big step for a woman, but with the Sheikh you will find much pleasure,’ she added slyly.

Danielle could only stare at her. The Sheikha had told Zanaide that she was to marry Jourdan? Her mouth compressed.

‘I am not going to make a single move from this bed until I’ve spoken to the Sheikh,’ Danielle announced determinedly.

‘Intrepid, if somewhat foolish of you, mignonne,’ a new voice drawled from the open doorway. ‘I wish to speak with your mistress,’ Jourdan told Zanaide. ‘You will leave us for a few minutes, and then return to prepare her for the ceremony.’

‘What ceremony? There will not be one,’ Danielle announced when Zanaide had gone. ‘Have you gone mad, Jourdan?’

‘Do I look as though I have?’

He had moved so silently that Danielle hadn’t heard him, and now he was standing by the bed, glancing assessingly through the flimsy bed hangings to where Danielle sat defiantly on the silken cushions. She had forgotten until that moment that Zanaide had removed her silk suit and that she was wearing merely her briefs and bra. Shyness made her long to cover her exposed body, but pride burned fiercely inside her, forcing her to remain still beneath the probing look.

‘I am making it easy for you, mignonne,’ Jourdan said softly. ‘I could make it so that you would be glad to marry me.’

‘By taking my virginity?’ Danielle said scornfully. ‘You are behind the times, monsieur. Such things are of no importance these days…’

She heard the angry hiss as he expelled his breath and wrenched aside the semi-transparent draperies to stare down at her with eyes which seemed to strip the remaining clothes from her body and survey it with an insolence that drove the colour from her skin.

‘And another man’s child? Is this too of no importance?’

‘You wouldn’t,’ Danielle breathed painfully.

His face grim, Jourdan assured her briefly, ‘I would do anything to secure my position in this country—my country—mignonne. Anything. Now, do we understand one another?’

‘My stepfather will never forgive you for this!’ Danielle stormed. ‘I don’t know how you’ve managed to persuade the Sheikha to be a party to this… this atrocity, but when my stepfather…’